Democrats in the Utah Senate deposed their longtime leader Friday morning, ousting Sen. Gene Davis from the role in a closed-door meeting that he did not attend.
Davis, a Salt Lake City resident who’s served as minority leader for about six years, said he’d tried to cancel the 7:30 a.m. meeting but learned too late that other caucus members had overruled him. The five senators who participated in the vote chose Sen. Karen Mayne of West Valley City to take charge of the caucus in 2019 and 2020.
Davis, who joined the Senate in 1999, said he’d intended to run for re-election as minority leader.